Storytelling as an Instrument of Societal Change

On November 3, 2025, JCU's Black and African Student Association (BASA) and Women's Leadership Initiative (WLI) hosted an event called “The Power of Storytelling: Amplifying Voices Through Social Change.” The main speakers were DEI expert and trainer Kwanza Musi Dos Santos, author Rahma Nur and JCU’s Communication Professor Marie Moise. The two student clubs organized the event in order to explore the transformative power of storytelling as a tool for social change, and how narratives can challenge stereotypes, and inspire collective action.

Stories that Stick with Us 

Professor Marie Moise specializes in the internet intersectionality of gender, race, class and political subjectification and has co-authored multiple collections of feminist and Afro-feminist essays and short stories. She began the discussion by sharing the origin of her last name, explaining that Moise is adapted from the name Moses, who, in the Bible, led the Israelites out of slavery from Egypt. Between the 16th and 19th centuries, over 13 million African people were forcibly transported to the Americas for enslavement. During what is known as the transatlantic slave trade, the name Moses held meaning because it provided hope for the slaves who survived the journey.

“History tells us about resistance and strategies of resistance. In Haiti enslaved people weren’t given last names until the abolition of slavery in 1803, and they were denied a family history. It was only then that formerly enslaved people could assign themselves a last name as an act of liberation from the previous regime,” said Moise.

“However, it is thanks to one of the most important black feminist authors, Angela Davis, that I realized that the name Moses was also used as code for Damballa Wedo, a Loa spirit in Haitian voodoo and the liberator of the slaves. Moses was the biblical name to talk about ‘Dambala Wedo’ without explicitly mentioning him. I discovered that the story of my name is not only a story of enslavement but also liberation.”

The Importance of Telling Our Story in Our Language  

Somalian Italian author Rahma Nur brings a unique multicultural perspective to literature and education. She's been teaching in Italian primary school for many years, while developing her voice as a writer of poetry and short stories. She has published several essays on education and issues related to ableism and racism. Recently, she published a new poetry book titled I, too, sing Italia (Astarte Edizioni, 2025).

Following Moise’s presentation, Nur went on to speak about feelings of identity loss. She specifically talked about the loss of languages that she has seen through generations in her lifetime. Nur was born and raised in Italy and much of her family is spread across Europe. In her youth, her mother and father spoke a dialect of Somali called Benedari, a coastal language in the southern region of Somalia. In the early 1900s until around 1930, Italy occupied Somalia under Mussolini’s fascist government. As a result, Nur’s family immigrated to Italy and spoke Italian. Many younger members of her family, including her daughter, all speak Italian, English, or Arabic languages, but have little knowledge of their Somalian roots and dialect.

“We speak these different new colonial languages, but it's important to keep our own mother tongue. We lose our culture and parts of ourselves when we don’t,” Nur said. Nur explained how much of a struggle - as well as a privilege - it is to have a connection with your culture when you’re living in a different country. . “When you don’t know and don’t share the language that has existed generations before you, you are denied the ability to understand the stories that shaped you."

The Strength of Being a Black Woman  

Kwanza Musi Dos Santos has Italian and Afro Brazilian roots. She specializes in anti-racism, environmental justice, and intersectionality, and currently works with both for-profit and non-profit organizations all over Europe.

Dos Santos concluded by giving advice on how she overcomes adversity as a black woman. “I’ve always known that my superpower is my anger. We suffer from this stereotype of the angry black woman, but we shouldn't fall into the trap of not seeing the potential of our anger. It's what people expect from us, so we’d better use it. I invite you all to express more of your anger and use it as your superpower to get things done, because it gives you the energy, and the fuel to change reality. It's something that I always did, quite naturally. There are so many women that still say they don’t get angry, but that's a lie. You do get angry,  you just don't express it, and that consumes you. Find ways to channel your anger.”

Following Dos Santos, Nur added “Poet and activist Audra Lorde once said that the work of the artist is to turn her rage into flowers. My flowers are my poems, and my rage is transformed by what I write. I have faced the challenge of finding space in an Italian literary landscape and I use poetry as a tool not just for my own empowerment, but also my audience’s.”